Are you a christian?

[Chi-Kun]

I'm an atheist 🙂

Cheers!

*High Five*

 

[Midnight]

I don't think I am. I am just confused about were God was on 9/11 or the earthquakes. He is just letting his people die?

Correct, this is what I have thought of every single day of my short life.

 

[Darwinian]

What evidence is there that God has verbally spoken to anyone then?

Joan of Arc, Padre Pio, Moses. Padre Pio was the most recent, dying in 1968.

No.. I asked for evidence.

Bolded. See also "stigmata."

Also (the way I believe) God doesn't have to necessarily have to speak to one directly.
I was in a car going about 45 miles per hour on a highway. We turned into the turn lane to get off the exit. It was in the winter and the roads were bad. A bird was in the road (there were no other birds around, after all it was winter) in the center of the off ramp. The driver honked the horn twice, and the bird didn't budge. The car slowed down to about 10 miles/hour and the bird flew away when the car was a few yards away. The driver continued to drive onto the offramp, but the car went off the ramp and down a hill headed towards a large metal pole near a trail. The driver was fortunately able to stop before the car crashed into the pole.

You don't think that the bird in the road (in the winter) was pure coincidence?

Um, Yes!

What if the bird hadn't been there and you'd hit the pole? Or because you didn't slow down for the bird your momentum carried you along and you didn't go off the ramp? Or you'd actually died in the accident?

Then you wouldn't be telling this story.

Are you really expecting people to believe that God personally intervened to save your life with the addition of a bird in the middle of the road when, for example, he totally ignores all those pleas for help from desperate parents whose children have terminal illnesses or conveniently ignores all those who die needlessly in horrific accidents? What's so special about you?

 

[Gimgak]

Darwinian, either nice troll or completely disregards what others believe and has no respect for other beliefs.

Can't decide.

 

[Darwinian]

How dare you sir.. Troll indeed.

But statements like "God saved my life with a stubborn bird" have to be challenged don't they?

 

[Gimgak]

I say there is no need to really take notice of them. As long as a person isn't shoving their religion down my throat (and unlike some I don't consider having a Christmas tree or something like that offensive, that's just stupid) I'm fine with it. If there is a god-like figure it would be impossible to actually prove it, we'll never know.

 

[Darwinian]

You're probably right but sometimes my incredulous chip goes into overdrive at some of the fatuous statements I read and I mourn for the overall state of the human condition 🙁

Next time I'll do my best to be courteous, diplomatic and understanding..

 

[Watch Me Sink]

Joan of Arc, Padre Pio, Moses. Padre Pio was the most recent, dying in 1968.

No.. I asked for evidence.

Bolded. See also "stigmata."

Also (the way I believe) God doesn't have to necessarily have to speak to one directly.
I was in a car going about 45 miles per hour on a highway. We turned into the turn lane to get off the exit. It was in the winter and the roads were bad. A bird was in the road (there were no other birds around, after all it was winter) in the center of the off ramp. The driver honked the horn twice, and the bird didn't budge. The car slowed down to about 10 miles/hour and the bird flew away when the car was a few yards away. The driver continued to drive onto the offramp, but the car went off the ramp and down a hill headed towards a large metal pole near a trail. The driver was fortunately able to stop before the car crashed into the pole.

You don't think that the bird in the road (in the winter) was pure coincidence?

Um, Yes!

What if the bird hadn't been there and you'd hit the pole? Or because you didn't slow down for the bird your momentum carried you along and you didn't go off the ramp? Or you'd actually died in the accident?

Then you wouldn't be telling this story.

Are you really expecting people to believe that God personally intervened to save your life with the addition of a bird in the middle of the road when, for example, he totally ignores all those pleas for help from desperate parents whose children have terminal illnesses or conveniently ignores all those who die needlessly in horrific accidents? What's so special about you?

Wrong. I met a student who had a terminal illness and was supposed to die at the age of 13. He suddenly recovered and even the doctors couldn't explain it. He had a slideshow and the medical records that weren't confidential, supported what he said. Of course this is hard to believe for any member on here, since I don't have any proof of this, nor do I remember the person's name...

 

[Darwinian]

Would it not be more reasonable to suggest that your student friend recovered through totally natural means and the reason that the doctors could not explain it is simply because like all humans, doctors do not know everything and can never predict exactly what will happen in every case.

 

[Watch Me Sink]

Would it not be more reasonable to suggest that your student friend recovered through totally natural means and the reason that the doctors could not explain it is simply because like all humans, doctors do not know everything and can never predict exactly what will happen in every case.

I would disagree, but that is just me.

 

[Darwinian]

That's fine but when you get into the mindset that God personally intervenes to save some lives but not others you start to run into problems.

For example, how can you differentiate between divine intervention and good luck and if you can't and there's no way tell who is worthy of this superlative divine attention and who isn't then it's no better than chance and therefore why attribute these things to a god?

For example, the powers that be at Lourdes like to boast that they have had xx thousand miracles, but that's out of millions upon millions of visits this is no better than chance. Conveniently, all those who are not cured are forgotten.

 

[Kino]

I am a Christian, and a very proud Christian and deeply religious.

 

[Darwinian]

you know once a Muslim and a non-believer decided that they would debate infront of all the people of that region that their respective perspactives are right. The Muslim saint has to prove that there is A God and the non-believer has to prove that there is no such power like God.
A date and time was given to both by the poeple and they had to debate on that day and prove themselves right.
On the Day of the debate the Muslim saint reached very late, and all other people and the non-believer reached at time. when the Muslim reached there to debate, the non-believer said to him that how will you debate with me you dont even know the worth of time. you came so late and you wasted our time waiting.
The Muslim person said that he is sorry for coming late but actually there is a reason. He said that on the way here there was a long huge river, and i could not swim across it so i sat on the bank and started thinking any possible solutions.
suddenly i saw a tree which was near the bank broke down into plane boards by itself. and then those plane boarda started to meet each other in a way that it took a shape of a boat. and after few minutes it became a complete boat and on of the branch of the tree turned into a paddle, so i sat on the boat and float across.
thats the reason i came late.
the non believer said, thats ridiculus, absolute non sense, how can a tree turn into a boat by itself? thats just not possible.

Then the Muslim replied that If a small tree can not turn into a boat by itself how can this huge humongous earth came into existance by itself?
(the non-believer had no answer)

Can you answer this?

Yes 😎 Because this is a fallacious analogy that panders to the undisciplined mind.

So, my answer to the Muslim Saint would be as follows..

"That's a loaded question, when did I ever say the Earth came into existence by itself? The Earth came into existence because of a complex web of cause and effect emanating from the point of the big bang, possibly before which followed entirely natural laws devoid of any conscious intent.

The reason that we both know the tree did not turn into a boat is simply because it would have had to have violated all these natural laws rendering a supernatural explanation very probable indeed.

As we can agree that this clearly did not happen and therefore no supernatural event occurred, all you have succeeded to demonstrate is your total lack of analogical understanding and critical thinking, giving further weight to my claim that there is no god or gods."

And then I would ask him for the real reason he was late.

 

[Firecracker]

Very interesting read. And in reply to OP, no I am not Christian. I am Wiccan.

 

[Mr. Money]

What evidence is there that God has verbally spoken to anyone then?

The Bible. (written evidence; plus its a collection of stories, so it can not be a coincidence that they all had the same person and same miracles)

Mr. Money, I see where you are coming from. Who knows, he might want people to go to heaven and lead a better life there, rather than stay and see the terrors of the world 😛

Sorry for the late post back, but your telling me that everyone of those people that died saw terrors of the world? Most people were just normal people like you and I.

 

[David]

What evidence is there that God has verbally spoken to anyone then?

The Bible. (written evidence; plus its a collection of stories, so it can not be a coincidence that they all had the same person and same miracles)

Mr. Money, I see where you are coming from. Who knows, he might want people to go to heaven and lead a better life there, rather than stay and see the terrors of the world 😛

Sorry for the late post back, but your telling me that everyone of those people that died saw terrors of the world? Most people were just normal people like you and I.

But then again, I ask non believers (not directed at you), things like the Big Bang, or "what is the universe sitting in?" can't be explained, and so to was your comment. Either way, I'm not too fussed on what will happen.

 

[Sam!]

Technically, yes. I'm Catholic.

Most of the arguments presented in religious debates (I'm not trying to create one, but read on) are that there is no evidence of God and Jesus existing. Well, a Religion requires faith. Faith is believing in something in the face of little evidence.

Athiests still believe in something. There is no proof that God and Jesus didn't exist - this is just something that athiests believe.

 

[David]

Technically, yes. I'm Catholic.

Most of the arguments presented in religious debates (I'm not trying to create one, but read on) are that there is no evidence of God and Jesus existing. Well, a Religion requires faith. Faith is believing in something in the face of little evidence.

Athiests still believe in something. There is no proof that God and Jesus didn't exist - this is just something that athiests believe.

Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity, so yeah 🙂

The Bible is evidence and word-of-mouth is evidence.

Atheists believe in evolution; they aren't agnostic, which I think you might have confused it with.

 

[Logan18]

What evidence is there that God has verbally spoken to anyone then?

Mr. Money, I see where you are coming from. Who knows, he might want people to go to heaven and lead a better life there, rather than stay and see the terrors of the world 😛

What David said. I also believe that he sometimes makes a good thing out of a bad one. It seems like when a natural disaster or terrorist attack happens the town, state, country, even sometimes world comes together. Take the Haiti earthquake for example, the United States donated money to help. Many athletes also donated a large amount of money to help out Haiti. There was also the red cross number (90999) that you could text and it would donate $10 to Haiti. I think sometimes God wants us to take action and help other people out.

Also, one thing some people (including myself) may need to remember is that God isn't always supposed to serve us, sometimes we should serve him.

I sometimes get mad at God and think how could you let this happen. But then I also think about all the good he's brought into the world and how much he must love us. After all, the Bible does tell us that God gave us his only son to forgive us of our sins so that we can live an eternal life with him in Heaven.

 

[activeboards]

not christian